Reactions and expressions of grief vary at different levels of maturity. It helps to know how children express grief at various ages. As a child matures, he or she will “revisit” a loss, thinking about it with a new level of understanding. Your child may be moody for what seems to be no reason sometimes. It is possible he or she is thinking about and perhaps missing the loved one who is gone.

Grief is a natural response to loss. It’s the emotional suffering you feel when something or someone you love is taken away. The more significant the loss, the more intense the grief will be. You may associate grief with the death of a loved one—which is often the cause of the most intense type of grief—but any loss can cause grief.

The death of someone close to us is one of life’s most stressful events. We fear loss of companionship and the changes it will bring to our lives. It takes time to heal and each of us responds differently.

When a loved one dies, it can be difficult to know how to help kids cope with the loss, particularly as you work through your own grief. How much kids can understand about death depends largely on their age, life experiences, and personality. But there are a few important points to remember in all cases.

How Can I Help My Child Cope with a Friend’s Death?

At the beginning, it's often more important for the bereaved to feel your presence than to hear anything you might say. Don’t feel you must have something to say. Especially with fresh grief, your embrace, your touch and your sincere sorrow are all the mourner may need. There are no words that will take away the pain of the loss.

The severe stress caused by grief brings about a number of changes to the body. Glands release chemicals called hormones. These circulate in the blood stream and stimulate many parts of the body putting them on alert. Adrenalin is one of these. In addition, the nervous system is put into overdrive. These mechanisms prepare your body to copy with extreme physical and emotional effort.

How children can survive the death of a loved one. Various resources and articles.

In our bereavement, we spend different lengths of time working through each step and express each stage with different levels of intensity. The five stages do not necessarily occur in any specific order. We often move between stages before achieving a more peaceful acceptance of death. Many of us are not afforded the luxury of time required to achieve this final stage of grief.